“Major League Baseball supports today’s decision by the Marlins to suspend Ozzie Guillen. As I have often said, Baseball is a social institution with important social responsibilities. All of our 30 Clubs play significant roles within their local communities, and I expect those who represent Major League Baseball to act with the kind of respect and sensitivity that the game’s many cultures deserve. Mr. Guillen’s remarks, which were offensive to an important part of the Miami community and others throughout the world, have no place in our game.”

The comments were OK, apparently, four years ago. And the important part of the Miami community’s objections to the Orioles trip to Havana in 1999 weren’t nearly as big a deal then, you see, because there was no Twitter and stuff and the news cycle moved much slower.

Judge Kenesaw Landis placed himself as the first Commissioner because of the Black Sox scandal. From Wikipedia:

“Following the Black Sox Scandal, team owners decided in 1920 to reform the National Commission with a membership of non-baseball men. However, their pick for chairman, former federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, would only accept an appointment as sole commissioner. He also demanded unlimited authority over all aspects of organized baseball. The owners agreed, in order to combat the perception of the sport being controlled by gambling interests.”

From his position, Judge Landis defined the role of the Commissioner, and often butted heads with the Owners. Same article:

“Landis ruled baseball with an iron hand for the next 25 years. He established a fiercely independent Commissioner’s Office that would go on to often make both players and owners miserable with decisions that have been seen in hindsight as being in the best interests of the game. He worked to clean up the hooliganism that was tarnishing the reputation of players in the 1920s, and inserted his office into negotiations with players, where he deemed appropriate, to end a few of the labor practices of owners like Charles Comiskey that had contributed to the players’ discontent. He also personally approved broadcasters for the World Series.”

The original intent of the Commissioner was to clean up the game. And he did that, from a fan’s perspective, thereby maintaining a level of oversight that we have not seen since Faye Vincent was fired for not “sticking up” for little Owner guy (i.e. smaller market teams).

Bud has done all he can do to make poorly run, small market ballclubs hugely profittable. He may have gotten mad at Frank McCourt, but he allowed FMC to split the Dodgers up into 4 entities, a move that compromised the team, complicated its sale, and, at the end of the day, increased everyone’s value but an exhorbitant amount.

The notion that a Commissioner is there for the fans may be a bit naive, but the notion that a Commissioner is supposed to increase the value of ballclubs for the less than 1% (i.e. 32 Owners) goes against the original intention of the office.

It took a great scandal, threatening the game itself, to get owners to give up that much power. There is no great scandal threatening the game today. So there’s no reason for the owners to give up power to an outsider.

I don’t agree with you, NatsTown. Steroids is a scandal, for both player usage and the industry’s early ambivalence. Speed should be a scandal, and the current sale of the Dodgers, alongside the market evaluation of the worth in billions of dollars, can be an emerging scandal.

In fact, if I was a politician with balls, I would have been strong arming baseball for quite some time.

Torre does not believe in expanding the use of instant replay, and in his recent role with MLB he defended umpires when they make egregious, game-changing mistakes because it’s, well, just part of the game.

Plus, as Yankee manager Torre refused to call a bunt on a gimpy Curt Schilling on a wet field in game 6 of the 2004 ALCS because he “doesn’t play the game that way”. Yes, I’m still angry about that, along with about a thousand other things Torre did in his declining years in pinstripes.

Remind me next Passover to add “midges” to the list. Usually I just say “frogs” 10 times because I can never remember all of them but, yes, midges do qualify.

Anyway, I could try to make the argument that not calling for a bunt on a fat pitcher with a shredded ankle was more due to Torre’s brain-dead idiocy than gallantry of any sort, and therefore is worse than letting his team be eaten alive by tiny flying insects. The problem is the latter just looked so awful that I’d probably lose that one going away.

As for Torre, at least he acknowledged afterwards he should have pulled the team off the field. Of course at the time he sat stapled to the bench picking his nose. My God, how I hated him by the end of his time with the Yankees.